Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9856 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Braun
• Model: 9347264

Amazon.co.uk Review

If you like the taste of proper coffee but can't be bothered with all the hassle required to make it, then the Tassimo from Braun is probably, if you'll pardon the pun, just your cup of tea.

Tassimo is the result of a collaboration between experienced appliance manufacturer Braun and food-giant Kraft and the fact that they've worked together from the start has really paid off.

Rather than using traditional brewing methods to produce your drinks, the Tassimo exclusively uses special pods called T-DISCS to brew your drinks. These T-DISCS each contain precise amounts of coffee, tea, chocolate or concentrated milk and have been individually designed for each of the different beverages that the Tassimo machine can produce. Each disc features a barcode that is read by the Tassimo machine when inserted and gives instructions on exactly how much water should be used and how long the drink should be brewed as well as any other variables that are needed in preparing the perfect drink. This rather high-tech approach to drink-making really pays dividends and during Amazon.co.uk's tests we were particularly impressed by the high quality of the drinks that the machine produces. At the time of writing there are seven drinks available in the Tassimo range including Kenco Classic Blend, Kenco Classic Blend Decaffeinated, Kenco Cappucino, Kenco Espresso, Kenco Caffé Crema, Twinings English Breakfast Tea and Suchard Hot Chocolate. Even the resident Amazon.co.uk coffee buff was pleasantly surprised, in particular with the machine's ability to churn out a potent espresso with a decent crema - something that often proves to be the stumbling point for other coffee machines (the crema is the layer of thickly effervescent foam that is found on top of a well crafted espresso).

The Tassimo machine itself is a squat little device with stylish curves and a clean modern feel to it, something that will make it look at home in pretty much any kitchen, dining room or home office. It has a good solid feel to it and a relatively compact footprint that won't take up too much valuable worktop space. Water for the drinks is provided by a 1 litre water container that sits at the rear of the machine. A nice touch is the ease with which you can fill the water container - the whole thing simply lifts off, can be filled directly from the tap and then popped back on again - meaning that there's no messing around with jugs of water required. Operating the machine is simplicity itself. Once you have chosen which drink you want just lift the clamp above the brewing mechanism, insert the appropriate T-DISC and close the machine up again. Conveniently T-DISCs only fit in the machine one way round, so even the most ham-fisted of individuals shouldn't experience too many problems. After a brief pause (while the machine reads a barcode on the T-DISC to work out how your drink needs brewing) the Auto light pops on and you can operate the Tassimo's single control - an unmistakably large start/stop button - to dispense your drink.

If you want to make other drinks straight away then the Tassimo copes well with this too. All that is required is to pop in another T-DISC and follow the process straight through again, although if you're making a large round you may experience a pause after the second or third cup while the Tassimo machine heats additional water to cope with the demand. The fact that all brewing happens inside the T-DISCs is a real boon at this point as it means that flavours aren't transferred when you switch between different drinks. Other features of the Tassimo include a variable height cup stand and the ability to make drinks stronger or weaker than standard (depending on your tastes) by adding more or less water as you brew them. This latter feature can actually turn out to be quite important if you're a fan of big mugs as the standard cup sizes delivered by the Tassimo (approx. 75ml for espresso, 200ml for cappuccino and 280ml for coffee, café crema and tea) can be a little on the small size for many bigger cups.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Great start - but a poor finish........
Bought one of these just over a year ago, and was impressed with the design, operation and features of the machine. Bought on a 'special offer' at the time of £80.00, and was pleased to find an introductory offer on the packs of 'T-discs' at our local Morrisons supermarket.

After the initial good impression, I started to encounter some of the negative factors: while very easy to make a single serving whenever you feel like it, it's quite a lengthy process preparing half-a-dozen shots consecutively. Later on I found the odd pack of 'T-discs' would fail: seals broke in the discs and coffee grounds would get into the cup. It wasn't a matter of cleaning or maintenance - other packs worked fine. This happened about four or five time during the (short) life of the machine.

A couple of months ago things started to go wrong - initially it was just a 'hiccup' like having to re-lock the 'T-disc' into place before the pouring would start. After that it progressed to having to switch the machine off and leave for a few minutes before attempting to prepare any drinks. In the end the behaviour became so erratic I lost patience and consigned it to the junk store. I should say that I followed the descaling procedures properly and at regular intervals.

About this time I noticed there were fewer special offers on the 'T-discs' in the supermarket. Then they started to reduce the number of discs in a pack, but sell at the same price of £2.99...hmmm...seems I'd been 'hooked' along with a number of others and they realised there was no need for the lower prices anymore.

Summing up: this 'duff' machine may well be in the minority - it happens - so don't be put off too much by my poor experience. I would consider carefully, however, the points about convenience of preparing several drinks in one go and be aware that you're locked-in for the life of the machine to buying the 'T-discs' at whatever prices the manufacturers choose. What did I do? Bought a good filter machine incorporating an insulated metal jug (Russell Hobbs Caffe Torino) - so now I choose the premium coffee I like, prepare several cups at a time (useful if people turn up out of the blue) and pay around 4p a cup instead of up to 37p with the Tassimo system.......

great choice of drinks, easy to use and nice styling
Incredibly easy to set up and get brewing, I really like the fact that it offers a choice of hot drinks rather than just your standard expresso or cappucino. It's a bit like having a mini drinks vending machine in your kitchen except that the drinks taste 100% better than office machines and as far as I can see, you can't get Mushroom Soup or Bovril T discs!!

The machine itself it easy to use, easy to clean (when you do need to clean it, which is not very often, there is a little brush that comes in the box) and is not as noisy as a standard glug glug filter or expresso machine. Because the drinks are mixed in the nifty T discs (using a neat barcode system that tells the machine what to do) there is no cross contamination of drinks. I hate tea and its important to me that my Suchard Chocolate isn't tainted after I've knocked up a cup of Rosie Lee for a friend!!

The drinks are brewed quickly, so you can easily provide a round of teas, cappucinos (with frothy milk), coffees before they go cool. I've found the T discs in Boots, Tescos, Morrisons and Asda so I have not a problem getting hold of the different varieties of drinks that the machine can produce.

The styling is not ground-breaking, it's a silver or black plastic machine with nice 'ergonomic' soft lines that looks nice enough in the kitchen.

To summarise, good choice of drinks via a T disc system that seem to be available in most of the big supermarkets, easy to use and clean and would look good in any kitchen.

Good choice of drinks, quick and clean
I like a choice of brews so I've given traded up my old Krups expresso
machine and bought a Braun Tassimo machine.

It's a bit space-age and trendy! It uses a T-disc system, which basically
are plastic pods containing hot chocolate (Suchard...mmmm!), tea and various
coffees. These slot int othe machine and hot water pumps through in a
similar way to an Expresso machine.

My only criticism would be that it's a bit noisy, and sounds abit like a
robotic purring cat but it's not as noisy as the steam function on my old
machine.

It is a nice looking thing, matt silver plastic and Braun styling that looks great on my kitchen worksurface.

I've tried all the drinks as my local Tesco stocks the T-discs but my
favourites have to be the hot chocolate and the Cappuccino...the Cappuccino
has a nifty 2 disc element, you make the expresso and then it froths a
t-disc of milk on top.

It's definitely easier to use than an Expresso machine and I really like the
choices of drink. I give it 4 and a half stars for the choice of drinks, the
quick process and its cleanliness.